Amazon Patents Humans Assisting Computers

theodp writes "Amazon's latest patent, the Hybrid Machine/Human Computing Arrangement, reads like scary sci-fi, with claims covering the use of humans 'of college educated, at most high school educated, at most elementary school educated, and not formally educated' to perform subtasks dispatched by a computer. From the patent: 'For examples, the task on hand requires French speaking humans, and Task Server has requested that each subtask be performed by at least 10 humans with a past accuracy record of at least 90%.' Yikes."

Comments

In other news

[neoform]

Amazon patents "using a computer".

Re:In other news

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It's just Manna. Or at least, the bare bones beginings of an automated management program that could take the retail and manufacturing sectors by storm...soon every teenager will be wearing a headset with a button to hit to acknowledge the order or completion of a task.

Re:In other news

[Harmonious Botch]

Except for the computer, it sounds like most of the jobs that I had during college. Thinking back, a lot of the bosses I had could have been replaced with comuters and everyone would have been happier.

Re:In other news

[LilGuy]

But just imagine all the extra traffic...

Re:I for one...

[njfuzzy]

How can you make a post predicting the first post?

Insert disk...

[muffel]

... in drive A:

I've done that since the 80's.

obligatory

[icthus13]

In Soviet Russia, Computer use YOU!

Scary Sci-Fi? Modern life?

[daigu]

A hybrid [boss/worker working] arrangement which advantageously involves [worker] humans to assist a [boss] to solve particular tasks, allowing the [boss] to solve the tasks more efficiently. In one embodiment, a [boss/worker] system decomposes a task, such as, for example, [making a car], into subtasks for human performance, and requests the performances. The [C-level boss/worker] system programmatically conveys the request to a [lower level boss] of the hybrid [boss/worker] arrangement, which in turn dispatches the subtasks to [workers] operated by [line level bosses]. The [workers] perform the subtasks and provide the results back to the [line level boss], which receives the responses, and generates a [report] for the task based at least in part on the results of the [worker] performances [and the rest based on whatever crap H.R. wants to hear.].

Your scary sci-fi scenario sounds remarkably like modern working life - refined by years of Taylorism.

This is not a troll...

[CptPicard]

... although the thought is potentially offensive to some. Wouldn't working as a wetware computer-augmenting classifier be the perfect job opportunity for a mentally handicapped person? I mean, someone with a regular IQ would find it boring over time to tell apart cats and dogs in pictures, but it sounds like a challenge for someone who is not in possession of such faculties. And this is exactly the sort of task that is troublesome for AI, while it being trivial for even "challenged" people! Cross-check the responses, reward those who vote with the consensus, and you've got something that actually might even work as a teaching tool... and how many Down's syndrome people could say they hold a "computer job"?

Don't flame me, I'm physically disabled myself and therefore am quite familiar with the troubles disabled people of all kinds face in particular when it comes to finding meaningful employment...

Re:Eh?

[twitter]

Interactive proof system with a human prover == not terribly scary to me.

Yeah, but a patent on it is. Even more scary is a patent on a program that really just prompts the user for input.

Re:AI?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And I think they have invented This, which is even more scary.

Prior Art

[metalmonkey]

On the fromt page today:
"New Algorithms Improve Image Search" http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/03/1952205.shtm l
The algorithm is based on users providing input upon computer request to classify images.

Re:is this even patentable

[mindwhip]

We have a very obvious prior art right here staring us all in the face... the moderation system on /.

There is no way a computer (at this time) could actually rate posts as off-topic, funny etc so people (of various educational backgrounds) are assigned by the computer to process the information and return the result to the computer. This is then verified by others doing the same thing, as well as meta moderated and all the other bits that go into who gets selected to get mod points in the future.

Gratz Amazon on patenting the /. moderation system...

Re:Prior Art

[QuantumG]

Oh boy. I tell ya. The concept of patent clearly isn't part of the education system.

Imagine I invent a new kind of lawn mower. I file a patent to protect my invention for 20 years so I can commercialize it without having to worry about the existing lawn mower companies snapping up my invention and beating me to market. What's the title on the patent going to be? That's right:

"A mechanism for the automated trimming of grass."

In the patent I will describe how the mechanism works. What prior art there has been in automatted trimming of grass, why my invention is novel and how hard/easy it is to manufacture.

So will get posted to Slashdot about it?

"Man Patents Lawnmower."

Then everyone will have a bit of a moan about how the patent office doesn't know what they're doing anymore and maybe they'll quote a few lines from the patent where I'm outlining what a lawnmower is with the intention of claiming that this is what I am patenting.